Malaysia

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT MALAYSIA - PAGE 3

Tunku Abdul Rahman, 87, Malaysia's first prime minister, died yesterday in Kuala Lumpur. The tunku, or prince, was prime minister from 1957 to 1970 and had become known as Bapa Malaysia -- the father of Malaysia. The son of the former sultan of northern Kedah state, he led the country that was then called Malaya to independence from Britain in 1957.Bill Hardman, 57, a U.S. jazz trumpeter and a leading member of drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers group in the 1960s and 1970s, died recently in a Paris hospital of a brain hemorrhage.

Eric Chun took a break from studying for two finals and writing papers for his Public Speaking and Team Leadership classes by winning a spot in the British Open. Not a bad extracurricular activity for the Northwestern sophomore. Chun flew to Malaysia to compete in an International Final Qualifying event and to defy the math. Seventy-one players would fight for four spots. Chun was one of two amateurs in the field. He laid up to 75 yards on the par-5 18th, knowing he needed to make birdie to avoid a four-man playoff.

Americans who condemn Singapore's sentence of a U.S. youth to caning for vandalism, like those who praise it, should be aware it is part of a whole fabric of difference between that society and ours.Caning for vandalism was instituted in 1966, to suppress political graffiti. Importing drugs brings execution. There is no crime to speak of, no chewing gum on the subway, no rudeness, no real political opposition or open criticism. This is a far cry from contemporary America, but U.S. families who live there have to comply with the authoritarian laws that make Singapore safe though regimented.

THE ASIAN disease did not hit the healthy United States when it reached Brazil, which devalued its currency Wednesday. But spread of the ailment to the world's eighth-largest economy means the sickness has infected the Western Hemisphere.U.S. trade with Brazil is small but growing, while U.S. private investment in Brazil is huge. So the threat of inflation and devaluation in Brazil is more to U.S. portfolios than to U.S. exporters.The $41.5 billion credit pledged to Brazil by the International Monetary Fund and Group of Seven nations in November, in return for deficit reduction, was in the U.S. national interest.

Day traders, who have tilted the bourses this year by darting in and out of Internet stocks like bumblebees on a lily, are a new form of an old financial problem: hot money.Day traders try to make a living by buying and selling stocks in a very short period. Minutes, sometimes seconds. A couple hours is a long-term investment. They're as patient as piranhas, faithful as Delilah.Internet bookseller Amazon.com has been prime day-trade prey. Its stock price tells the tale. It was $41 in November, $199 in January, $89 in February and $180 last week.

In a cavernous room on the 12th floor of First National Bank of Maryland, John Michael Rusnak and Matthew F. Kozak sit side by side with their eyes trained on a bank of computers.Rusnak slides his chair behind a computer called the Electronic Brokering System and swings into action. Second by second, the computer shows the prices currency traders at money-center banks and large investment houses around the world are willing to pay to exchange their dollars for marks, francs, pounds and other major currencies.

THE UNITED Nations' climate summit that opened this week in Kyoto, Japan, will probably not end in a flaming row. Countries must not lose face, and so they are more likely to cobble together some shoddy compromise that is worth nothing. But a spectacular failure would be much better, for at least it might get the donkey's attention.Or more precisely, the frog's attention. Environmentalists often compare human behavior to that of frogs -- who, if you drop them into a pot of boiling water, will jump right out again and survive.

By Christopher Reynolds and Christopher Reynolds,LOS ANGELES TIMES | May 26, 1996

ON THE ANDAMAN SEA -- Southeast Asia, and the living is easy.Along the shores of Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore, the jungle vegetation is in full riot, the old architecture is in picturesque post-colonial decline, modern economies are in overdrive, and here and there a beach lies fine-grained and underpopulated. Every day, I face a devil of a choice: explore ashore, or submit to serious luxuries aboard ship.By serious luxuries, I do not mean the occasional complimentary umbrella-topped cocktail.

By Eileen Ogintz and Eileen Ogintz,Los Angeles Times Syndicate | September 11, 1994

Melanie refused to be hurried. She wanted to inspect every leaf, turn over every rock and dip her hands in every trickle of water.Exasperated, Matt and Reggie hurried ahead of us on the trail in Mount Rainier National Park. Soon, Melanie demanded to be carried. But every minute or so, she wanted to get down to examine something else."Good thing we weren't attempting a really long hike," mhusband, Andy, said, straining with 37-pound Melanie on his shoulders; we'd forgotten the child backpack at home.